AMD 5000+ Black Edition AM2 X2 Processor Review

Introduction:

It's a good time to be an enthusiast. I remember the days of setting dip switches on the Goldfinger devices and butchering my hands opening up the cases on the SECC1 cartridge on the Slot As, then using candle wax, crayons, and conductive ink to link the bridges on the Socket A. With clock multipliers being locked on most CPUs now, save for the ultra high end AMD-FX, Intel Extreme Edition, and almost unattainable engineering samples, AMD has extended an olive branch to the enthusiasts offering unlocked multipliers on its Black Edition CPUs.

The Black Edition currently consists of the AMD 5000+ X2 BE, AMD 6400+ X2 BE, and Phenom 9600 BE. Stay with me here, the 6400+ X2 Black Edition was released first in late August 2007 as the "top dog" 90mm Windsor core with 2x1MB L2 cache at 125W TDP running 3.2GHz. The multipliers are available from 16x downwards (i.e multipliers locked). The 5000+ X2 was released in late September 2007 based on the 65mm Brisbane core with 2x512MB L2 cache at 65W TDP running 2.6GHz. The multipliers are fully unlocked (4x-25x). Following suit, the Phenom 9600 Black Edition also has unlocked multipliers.